rich colours of yellow squash and ruby
tomatoes, and odd-shaped silhouettes of
perfectly delicious cucumbers. And as
more city-dwellers convert to the cult that
is urban agriculture, the practice is
becoming less cult-ish. Now, it seems that
city governments in New York, Montreal,
Paris, London and beyond are allocating
funding and initiating programming to
encourage building owners, individuals
and community organisations to join and
foster the urban-farming movement.
"It's definitely become a worldwide
phenomenon," says Melbourne's Joost
Bakker, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed brain
and brawn behind Greenhouse, an entirely
waste-free restaurant in Perth. In recent
years, Bakker has also created pop-up
Greenhouse restaurants in Sydney and
Melbourne. The vegies on Greenhouse
menus come from rooftop plots and vertical
gardens spilling leafy goodness from the
restaurant walls. Bakker engages engineers,
architects, artists and landscapers to
construct each pop-up and permanent
Greenhouse structure from recycled
materials. Discarded plastic shipping
pallets are used for the foundations,
repurposed plywood for the bar top, and
latex and leather salvaged from the scrap
pile is turned into lounge cushions.
Last year, Bakker and his savvy
contemporaries built Silo, the Melbourne
cousin to Greenhouse at which there are no
bins and all fresh produce, from milk to
eggs, avocados and potatoes, are delivered
by the suppliers in refillable vessels. Food
waste is dehydrated via worm farms into
compost that goes back to the vegie patch.
"Imagine a kid running upstairs to grab
some carrots or cut a lettuce every night
for dinner," he says dreaming of a near
future in which every urban home is
growing food on its roof. "People who live
like that become utter food critics because
they know what good food is."
Bakker is an example of a runaway
culture of independent innovation and
entrepreneurship dedicated to sustainable
food production, processing and marketing
in our growing urban world. The movement
is increasingly government supported;
however at time of print, Bakker's plans to
incorporate a 1000-square-metre rooftop
glasshouse, stone-mill bakery and fish farm
had been stalled by City of Melbourne for
height restrictions. Bakker is also looked at
sideways for his stance (perhaps Portlandia
style?) on urine. "You only need the urine of
25 people to provide fertiliser for a hectare
of crop," runs a line on his website.
Apparently it's good for nitrogen.
There are also less confrontational
innovations --- such as worm farms,
biodigesters that convert manure into
methane and super-affordable window
farms fit for inner-city apartments the size
of a minibus --- being developed, installed
and embraced in homes, buildings and
on community plots everywhere around
the world. It's happening for myriad
reasons: social justice, personal fulfilment,
environmental activism and, for many,
out of economic necessity.
(clockwise from
top le ) An east
London city farm;
eco-entrepreneur and
Greenhouse founder
Joost Bakker; the
waste-free Silo
cafe in Melbourne.
virginaustralia
JULY | 103
{urban farming} NAVIGATE